Progress on our Home

I thought I would post some photos of what we've been doing with all of our free time lately (other than going to see the Bourne Ultimatum which was excellent). Below you can see some before and after shots of things in our soon-to-be-fabulously-lovely home, as well as some mid-progress photos. Also, many thanks to our wonderful and talented friend, Frank, for all his hard work and wisdom in helping restore our home.

The old Kenmore range that finally gave out after 30+ years. Only two burners worked and I ruined almost everything I baked since it was an old gas oven.


The new duel-fuel Bosch range with warming drawer. We love it already!!! We get great gas flame up top, and happy electric heat in the oven. Just as it should be.

The hardwood floor being revealed as Tony pulled up the carpet in the future den.

Rolled up carpet ready to be thrown out. Tony pulled up all the staples and tack boards.

The beauty of the hardwood floor revealed completely in the future den (was tv room). Seeing how pretty it is kind of made us regret already purchasing the carpet, but all of our original reasons for going with that still stand, so we are happy knowing the wood is in good shape if we ever change our minds in the future. With a little TLC it could be glowing.

This week the big push is to get all of the woodwork prepped for painting. This is a HUGE job even in a small house. We have a Craftsman style bungalow, and they used a lot of wood in the decor which is one reason the house is so adorable, but it also means there is a lot of work to do. We are burning the paint off of all woodwork and scraping down to the bare wood. This is almost 80 years of paint, people! Once the scraping is done, we have to sand, prime, and paint all of it too. Tony has been working valiantly at this project as I mentioned on a previous post, but with everything else going on, we just haven't been able to focus on it as needed...

Enter our story's other hero - Frank! This is one of Tony's best friends from way, way back. He is a handyman and painter extraordinaire. We hired him to come in for one day this week and help burn paint. Not the most pleasant job, but he made an extra effort to fit us into his full schedule. Frank patiently taught me how to do the burning as well since have a LOT of other doorways and baseboards yet to go (we are just doing the living and dining rooms for now). Frank has been helping on our house for over a year as he gave us the generous wedding present of prepping and painting the walls and ceiling in our living room and dining room. These photos of the guys aren't especially flattering, but the weather in PA decided to turn warm again (near 90 degrees on the day) and when you're shooting blistering hot air at a wall all day, it can't help but make for an unpleasant experience! We couldn't use the A/C since the heat guns used up so much power we didn't want to blow any circuits. I didn't even want photographic evidence of my appearance that day! Let's just say my face was redder than a tomato and leave it at that. Tony and I will continue on the restoring-woodwork and pulling-carpet warpath this weekend. More updates later!